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Why only elf women fall in love with human men, not the other way around?

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  • Why only elf women fall in love with human men, not the other way around?
• Why only elf women fall in love with human men, not the other way around?

• Why only elf women fall in love with human men, not the other way around?

  badlands > December 3rd, 2023, 08:43 PM

  Is it because elf men are arrogant snobs or they considered elf women more beautiful than human women or human ones don’t last as long ? Orcs would probably disagree with elf women being more beautiful than human ones.

• RE: Why only elf women fall in love with human men, not the other way around?

  Alvin Eriol > December 5th, 2023, 10:00 PM

  JRRT did sketch out one scenario in the First Age, in which one of the sons of Finarfin, Aegnor, fell in love with a human woman Andreth. He soon afterwards is believed to have perished in the Battle of Sudden Flame. (His brother Angrod is also believed to have died in that action, but no one who helped provide source material for the Silmarillion witnessed that death, either!) In the essay/story fragment "Athrabeth (which means 'debate') Finrod ah Andreth," appearing in HoME X, Morgoth's Ring, Finrod Aegnor's brother discusses with Andreth that matter, and the beliefs of the Edain concerning their mortality and fate.
  
  Presumably, the parameters of such a union would parallel the experience of those Elves who are recorded to have wed a Man: Lúthien, Idril, Arwen, Mithrellas. Children of such unions would be mortal "by default" assuming no divine intervention such as occurred with the children of Lúthien and Idril, though they might resemble the Elven parent. We don't know as Aegnor and Andreth never consummated their love, and no other tales of such a union are told by JRRT. Lúthien was made mortal by special dispensation of Eru, it's not something that happens 'by default' merely because an Elf and human marry.
  
  JRRT apparently never felt led to include such a pairing in his tales of Middle-Earth.

• RE: Why only elf women fall in love with human men, not the other way around?

  Michael > December 9th, 2023, 04:46 PM

  Tolkien wrote some quick notes in the 1950s (cannot be dated any better than that) which have been labeled "The Primal Impulse". In Text B (which is in much more finished form) he suggests that there could have been more unions between non-Eldar and Men than between Eldar and Men; but then follows up by [possibly] suggesting that such unions were only intended by Iluvatar for "certain purposes of the Tale, and no doubt only in the greater of the Eldar".
  
  So that's not really clear to me.
  
  Also, Iluvatar promised new things would happen throughout Time, so if he had intended a limit on Elvish-Man unions, he could change his mind.

• RE: Why only elf women fall in love with human men, not the other way around?

  Jaak > December 15th, 2023, 07:29 AM

  What is the story of the fairy wife a Took took?

• RE: Why only elf women fall in love with human men, not the other way around?

  Michael > December 18th, 2023, 02:40 AM

  It was pretty much a joke Tolkien included in the early part of The Hobbit. He never returned to it (directly - he did associate the Fallohides with Elves in the Prologue to The Lord of the Rings).

• RE: Why only elf women fall in love with human men, not the other way around?

  Jaak > December 22nd, 2023, 06:39 PM

  (December 18th, 2023, 02:40 AM)Michael Wrote: It was pretty much a joke Tolkien included in the early part of The Hobbit.

  Hobbits have other dealings with Elves, and by implication Valar:
  

  Bilbo Wrote:mad adventures, anything from climbing trees to stowing away aboard the ships that sail to the Other Side

  Capitalized Other Side. Meaning Uttermost West. Bilbo and Frodo were not the first.

• RE: Why only elf women fall in love with human men, not the other way around?

  Michael > December 23rd, 2023, 12:02 PM

  But Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam would have been the only hobbits to succeed in getting to the Other Side. After all, how would anyone know a hobbit had stowed away on one of those Elven ships? Would they have brought witnesses the Elves didn't notice? Seems unlikely to me.
  
  So I'd say the stowaways were caught and probably put ashore (hopefully politely with maybe a good laugh).

• RE: Why only elf women fall in love with human men, not the other way around?

  Jaak > December 24th, 2023, 05:57 PM

  The original specifies fairy family, not fairy wife (and the less friendly say goblin family).

• RE: Why only elf women fall in love with human men, not the other way around?

  Alvin Eriol > December 24th, 2023, 10:57 PM

  (December 23rd, 2023, 12:02 PM)Michael Wrote: But Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam would have been the only hobbits to succeed in getting to the Other Side. After all, how would anyone know a hobbit had stowed away on one of those Elven ships? Would they have brought witnesses the Elves didn't notice? Seems unlikely to me.
  
  So I'd say the stowaways were caught and probably put ashore (hopefully politely with maybe a good laugh).

  
  My theory about that issue has always been that if an ineligible person somehow got past Círdan's Falathrim dockworkers and sailors and boarded a ship, post-Downfall, that ship would be unable to access "the Straight Road" by which it could leave Middle-Earth and cross the Sundering Seas to the Blessed Realm lands. This might also apply to forbidden artifacts such as the Ruling Ring. Ineligible people would include mortals, unrepented Exiled nobles not forgiven, maybe Avari, fallen unrepentant Ainur, and any Elves, who are also the namesake of one of our members' screen names, who are afflicted with a curse applied by a powerful fallen Maia!

• RE: Why only elf women fall in love with human men, not the other way around?

  Jaak > December 26th, 2023, 08:03 AM

  Fairy/goblin "wife" is perhaps implied by "married into a fairy family" through the strict hobbit practice of patronymous lineages where the only alternative is neonymous, not matri/uxorinymous?
  New names were possible. Samwise was Gamgee in his youth including adventures, but all his children were Gardeners, incl. Elanor. Did Samwise himself cease to be a Gamgee, and if so, when? Anyway, they became Gardeners not Cottons. Orphaned Frodo nee Baggins was adopted by his maternal kin... but he stayed Baggins rather than become a Brandybuck.
  Fairies are mostly mononymous. When they have a second apellation, it seems to be a personal nickname, not hereditary surname - Elu Thingol and Luthien Tinuviel have different surnames! There are fewer goblins described by name, but they appear mononymous as well.
  Makes sense that any male fairy or goblin (or man, or dwarf) who settles down in Shire, gets accepted by community, marries a hobbit girl and produces half-halfling children would be treated as founder of a new hobbit family, and be expected to adopt a new patrilineal surname - different from his wife´s surname.
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